Creditanstalt

The Creditanstalt (sometimes Credit-Anstalt or CA) was an Austrian bank. The Creditanstalt was based in Vienna, founded in 1855 as K. k. priv. Österreichische Credit-Anstalt für Handel und Gewerbe (approximately translated as: Imperial royal privileged Austrian Credit-Institute for Commerce and Industry) by the Rothschild family. Being very successful, it became the largest bank of Austria-Hungary. It declared bankruptcy on May 11, 1931. It has been said that this event resulted in a global financial crisis and ultimately the bank failures of the Great Depression. The bank was ultimately rescued by the Oesterreichische Nationalbank and the Rothschilds and merged with the Wiener Bankverein, thus changing its name to Creditanstalt-Bankverein.